Generosity and Architecture

About this event

The session explores generosity in architecture with editors and contributors of a new book on the topic. It proposes that architecture can function as a true embodiment of generosity and examines how generosity in architecture operates within, and questions, current and historical socio-economic and political systems. It interrogates ways in which architecture aspires for something more, whether within economic austerities or within historic contexts of a discipline that has often been preoccupied with cost and quantitative measurement.

The session focuses on two chapters that critically examine the theme of generosity and architecture through the everyday processes of architectural practice, procurement, and policy in a London context. These are titled, 'A place for participation on the Old Kent Road' and '"Rewild My Street": A model for community-led urban rewilding' and explore how architecture – in its processes of ordering and shaping space – can represent and embody generosity in all its multifaceted potential.

Speakers

Mhairi McVicar is a Professor at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, and academic lead of Cardiff University's partnership platform, Community Gateway. As well as Generosity and Architecture, her publications include Precision in Architecture: Certainty, Ambiguity and Deviation (Routledge, 2019) and Economy and Architecture (Odgers, McVicar, Kite, eds, Routledge 2015). Her research into co-production and live teaching with Community Gateway has been published in Architectural Design, Charrette, and Architecture and Culture, and supported the £2 million redevelopment of the community-managed Grange Pavilion (Benham Architects and IBI Group), which won a RSAW Design award and RSAW Client of the Year in 2022.

Stephen Kite is an Emeritus Professor at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. His research explores the history and theory of architecture, and its wider links to visual culture. His many publications include the monographs: Shadow makers: A cultural history of shadows in architecture (2017) and Building Ruskin's Italy: Watching architecture (2012). Recently published is Shaping the Surface: Materiality and the History of British Architecture 1840-2000 (Bloomsbury, December 2022), and Generosity and Architecture (McVicar, Kite, Drozynski, eds., Routledge, 2022).

Charles Drozynski is a Doctor of architecture and senior lecturer at the University of the West of England. His research interests include the intersections of architecture and post-linguistic schools of thought; in particular, these put forward by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari with focus on the significance of subversion as well as new or unconventional ideas in spatial design.

Jane Clossick studied architecture at Sheffield University (2001 - 2004) and the University of East London (2006 - 2009) and worked at practices in London and Manchester. She completed her doctorate at London Met (2010 - 2017), a study of a London high street. Her research interests include urban depth and city morphology, high streets, industrial and workspace accommodation, participatory design processes and activism through design.

Siân Moxon is a senior lecturer in sustainable design at London Metropolitan University’s School of Art, Architecture and Design. Siân’s practice-led design research explores urban biodiversity within the Cities group at the Centre for Urban and Built Ecologies (CUBE). Siân leads the ‘environment challenge’ for London Met Lab and the Art, Architecture and Design Education Declares working group. Siân is an architect, author and founder of the award-winning Rewild My Street urban-rewilding campaign.

Chair

Ambrose Gillick is MArch course lead at Kent School of Architecture & Planning, leads transdisciplinary research on home, health, play and food poverty with community groups and colleagues across the Channel region. He is writing a book on postmodern urban history for Lund Humprhies and hosts the A is for Architecture podcast.